Rooted Together: Addressing Food Insecurity at the Intersection Between Data Humanism and Participatory Design

The Parkdale Food Centre, a non-profit organization in Ottawa, provides social community programs and services that aim at inspiring and empowering individuals to address the root causes of food insecurity. Programs include a community kitchen, catchment-based grocery program, youth-run social enterprise and employment training program. The Centre seeks support in re-designing the existing Mino’Weesini Grocery Program, a free choice food bank, into a place of encounter where all community members, regardless of the economic situation, will meet to engage in grocery-related activities and in community-building ones. Unlike conventional approaches that focus on individual responsibility, the new program will address food insecurity as an intersectional, systemic and collective issue. This will happen through the design and implementation of an innovation process that brings together Participatory Design and Data Humanism to enable transformative justice. The process devised for the re-design could be beneficial to other community-based organizations addressing similar societal issues.

Faculty Supervisor:

Chiara Del Gaudio

Student:

Partner:

Parkdale Food Centre

Discipline:

Sociology

Sector:

Health and Related Sciences & Technology

University:

Carleton University

Program: